Our life in the foothills of Calaveras County, California. The pond is at the center of everything. In case we should forget, the bullfrogs yell it out all summer long. A noisy place, but home.

Pond!

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Not quite a lake (yet), but... :)

It felt like Christmas morning; waking up before dawn and wondering what surprise had been left during the night. It was still dark outside, so I just lay in bed, happily listening to the rain flowing through the downspout. I did my best to tone down my unrealistic yearnings that the pond was now a mighty lake.

When it grew light I put a coat on over my bathrobe, slipped on my clogs and grabbed the umbrella and then an assortment of cats and dogs and I trooped down to inspect the pond.

While it's no mighty lake, we definitely have a pond again and I'm very grateful for that. The far end is filling and the water is now creeping up to the culvert.

The island is officially an island again -- even though one side has only about six inches of water separating it from the shore. Poom briefly became King of Hopperopolis (what we recently named our island) when he jumped across the water and scaled the rocks.

When it started sprinkling again, he apparently decided that being king wasn't for him and voted himself off the island.

Here's the island from another side...

...and the island from farther away.

As you can tell, I'm very pleased about this, even though the island is only a few hot summer days from being a non-island again. It's a start.

I searched through my pictures of the pond from last spring, after the last of the few rains we had. I didn't have many because I didn't have much desire to look at it, much less take pictures (now I wish I had). However, I did find one:

May 5, 2014

Here is how it looked the last spring. It was already drying up even though we had a few more light rains. The scum on top pleased the few frogs that were left, but didn't add much charm for the rest of us.

December 12, 2014

Here was pond yesterday. The angle of the shot is about the same, although it was taken from closer in. Still, it's obvious that we already have more water now than we did last spring. And we still have at least four more months of our rainy season left.

While standing on the edge of the bank, looking down into the pond, a movement caught my eye -- an insect (I think it's called a water skater) zig-zagged away from me across the surface of the water. The little guy may have been small, but he is the first of the wildlife I've seen return to the pond. A good omen.

Seal

I cannot end this post without acknowledging my early morning pond-documentation crew.

Oops -- I added your comment twice and tried to fix things by deleting the second one. I've made it worse! Oh, well.Yes, of course we would love to have our grandpuppy come up to paddle around the pond whenever she would like. :)

About Me

My husband and I live in a small house by a small pond that is just past the first and smallest foothill of the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Our nearest town has the rather large name of Copperopolis, but the town itself is also very small. During the school year I drive my small car down into the valley to teach 4th grade at – you guessed it – a smallish school. On both a grand and a personal scale, life is too short and too miraculous to be taken for granted. This chronicle of our life here at Frogpond Acres is one way for me to remain mindful and appreciative of the many not-so-small wonders and blessings that surround us.